Help! How Do I Talk Dirty?

The answer to this question is “no,” the reason being that the previous sentence sounds downright stupid coming out of my mouth. Unfortunately, I think I’m bad at phone sex. Wait. Let me rephrase: I am very bad at phone sex. I just don’t have it. Right now, as I write this, I’m listening to Outkast’s “Elevators” from the album ATLiens, and I have to ask myself, Why can’t I talk smooth like Andr� 3000? The answer is, Because I am a nerd and not an amazing southern rapper. But it’s actually more complicated than that.

You know what sentence sounds appropriate coming out of my mouth?

“I think Arrested Development couldn’t survive more than three seasons because the writing was actually too smart, the acting too on point; it didn’t want to be Two and a Half Men—and was hence doomed from the start, ratings-wise.”

Unfortunately, the above isn’t going to get anyone off. Or if it did, I think the problems in that relationship would extend far beyond inadequate phone sex.

The thing is, while I by no means see myself as vanilla in the bedroom (who does, really—sex is the closest physical interpretation we have to singing in the shower), I have a problem with fakery. No matter if I’m being passive, rough, passionate, or fun in the bedroom, I have to believe it—it has to come from an honest place.

That could be a hopeful ratiocination, but dirty talk just feels like pretending to me even, or especially, when there’s a phone to my ear.

Perhaps this is not something I need to get better at; perhaps it’s something I need to get over. Perhaps the problem isn’t that she doesn’t "like it when I do that.” It’s that I don’t.